Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today I want to ask you, what is the sin of Christian fatalism, Christian fatalism, and why is it so deadly? But first I wanted to let you know that we have just appreciated your listenership over the years. And I know that many of you have been listening quietly and silently behind the scenes for Solomon.

I've met some of you in the grocery store or at a baseball game, something like this, and I've always endured that. But what I'd like to do is formally invite you to a dinner on the last Wednesday of every month. I believe the next one is February 22nd, Wednesday, a very last Wednesday then of the month of February at seven o'clock in our fellowship hall for a spaghetti fellowship dinner. We'd like to do this on behalf of all of you listeners and just give you a chance to meet me and a few of our people in our congregation that will help me make that dinner.

But that would be then at five o'clock, 5 p.m., not 7 p.m., but 5 p.m. on the last Wednesday of February. Please set that aside. Plan to meet us. Plan to come out and see us. Well, back to our topic.

What is the sin of Christian fatalism and why is it so deadly to us? Throughout history, the Christian church has been optimistic about its power and ability through its Lord Jesus Christ to transform the world around it in conformity with the gospel. This goes to the very heart of our culture, society, and politics as well. Yes, dear listener, Christianity has the power through our Lord Jesus Christ and the ability to transform our world. From the earliest proclamation of the gospel, for that matter, the expectation was that it would be victorious in every sphere of human activity.

Jesus himself said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, that is based upon that authority in heaven and earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. We are to baptize and make disciples of all nations.

Doesn't say all individuals and all churches and on and on. No, all nations. And he told Peter, I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Indeed, this is the promise of the gospel that it will transform nations, not just families, not just individuals, but nations and cultures and societies. One of my favorite examples of this is from the book of Acts, where the apostle Paul is passionately preaching the gospel to the magistrates, King Agrippa and Festus. Festus said to Paul as he was preaching, he says, Paul, you're out of your mind.

Your great learning is driving you out of your mind. But Paul just turned around and he appealed directly to King Agrippa. He said, King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. And Agrippa's response is instructive too.

He said, in response to Paul, in a short time, would you persuade me to be a Christian? Well, the question is left open as to whether either of these Roman officials ever became believers. But what if they had? What would Paul's advice to them have been, do you think? Would Paul have said, King Agrippa, you must resign your kingship because the garments of the gospel must not be soiled with politics.

Would he have said that to him? Would he have said, King Agrippa, now that you're a Christian, you must keep a strict separation between church and state and not let your newfound faith affect your political decisions as a king. Would Paul have said to King Agrippa, don't bother your pretty head about changing anything in your kingdom because the signs are present that the rapture is going to happen soon. And the great tribulation and the Antichrist will be here. There's nothing you can do about those things here and not.

Would he have said these kinds of things to King Agrippa? No, of course not. Paul would have passionately told him what he told the Colossians. And whatever you do, Paul said to the Colossians, and he would have said this to King Agrippa, and he says this to us too, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him, unquote. As a king, Paul would have expected King Agrippa to do all things in his business as king in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And this is exactly what majestates and scientists and businessmen and tradesmen have done, whatever they're calling, throughout history. And it has transformed our culture wherever it has been applied too, including government and politics and society. Just look at the West in comparison to the rest of the world, dear listener. Where would you rather live? King Charlemagne, for example, did everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and he established a rich culture and society that began to be called Christendom in his own day.

Newton did everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and ushered in the era of modern science, nicknamed the Newtonian universe. And George Washington, of course, did everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. And along with his co-founding fathers, established the most liberating document ever created. That is the United States Constitution. And on and on we could go.

And I have done in other places and other lectures too, documenting the incredible power the gospel has to transform not only the individual soul, but also the world around that soul, that very world in which the individual convert to Christ lives. And this is the rich heritage the gospel has throughout redemptive history. That is until recently. The modern American church has become a clutch of chickens, a bevy of brainwashed bots, a flock of fatalists, a flock of fatalists. Fatalism has infected and affected the American Christian church.

Fatalism is defined by the Oxford companion to philosophy as the belief that deliberation and action are pointless because the future will be the same no matter what we do. Good brief definition of fatalism. The belief that that deliberation and action are pointless because the future will be the same no matter what we do. The classic example is given from antiquity and it's called the idle argument, idle, I-D-L-E argument. That is you're fated to either recover from your illness or not.

And therefore it does no good for you to call a doctor. This is absurd of course, and most people would see it so, but the modern American church has fallen prey to it when it comes to acting out the gospel in their world. We have become a nation of Christian fatalists, a nation of Christian fatalists, and this fatalism appears in four different forms. Number one, our eschatology can make of us Christian fatalists. Number one of the four forms of fatalism in America, our eschatology can make of us Christian fatalists.

Doctrines like the rapture and the great tribulation make such Christians throw up their hands in futility at doing anything to affect the life and culture in America. This school of end times teaching is practically all that most Americans know, and it is inculcated as gospel. But it is not, and it has in reality only been with us since the early 19th century when men like John Nelson Darby began teaching what is now known as dispensationalism. Darby and other teachers like C.S. Schofield and his Schofield Reference Bible brought a novel doctrine to America.

That is, it's new, and if it's new, it's not true in most cases, a novel doctrine called the pre-tribulation rapture, the pre-tribulation rapture. If you're a Christian out there these days, I'm sure you've heard of this doctrine. Never before found in Christian doctrine, though, it teaches that the church will be taken up into heaven, that is raptured, to be with Jesus before a period of great judgment and trial comes upon the earth, and that will be called the great tribulation. It's then that the wicked will get what for. Then the evil world and all of its nasty sin will be punished.

Then God will bring justice in full measure upon the world. In the meantime, I don't have to do anything about it. One teacher, the evangelist Oliver B. Green, who lived between 1915 and 1976, but he was a famous exponent of this pre-tribulation rapture doctrine. He says, and I quote, God will not judge this earth nor the wicked in final judgment until the church is taken out of the earth.

That promise is clear. And then he quotes Revelation 3, verse 10, because thou has kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth, unquote. And he goes on to say, Green goes on to say, this verse definitely refers to the great tribulation period after the rapture, unquote. Well, what this pre-tribulation rapture teaching has done is create a kind of escape hatch mentality in the church whereby the world is getting worse and worse and there's nothing we can do about it.

It's descending towards the great tribulation, but not to worry, we will be snatched into heaven before it all goes down. And therefore, great labors too, and as I quote, then see where this is from, as great labors then to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, excuse me, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Well, these become futile and useless. Some teachers even say that these activities go against faith and what God is trying to do. A certain fundamentalist strain says save souls, not cultures.

This is fatalism, pure and simple. Christ insists that we be salt and light in our world, not hiding that light under a bushel when it comes to politics, culture, and society. The apostle Paul would have saved and sent King Agrippa back to be a Christian monarch in the full sense of the term. And our founding fathers would have the Christian religion shape our politics, culture, and society while having no one church or one denomination dictating and dominating the government. All of them would rebuke the idle fatalistic response of the contemporary American church and its false eschatology, I submit to you.

Well, there is a corollary attitude then to this rapture mentality, and it is number two. Of the four different kinds of Christian fatalism, this contributes. That is, a glib, shallow theology can make of us Christian fatalists. Number two, a glib, shallow theology can make of us Christian fatalists. Many Christians have a schizophrenic approach to God's sovereignty, denying his election of individual saints to salvation.

I hear things like this all the time in this region, you know, for instance, that God gave us all free agency and that we can choose to believe or not. So, we reject God's sovereignty in this realm, but we shrug our shoulders about politics, society, and culture, and we say, oh, God is in control. There's nothing we can do about it, and this is the way it's meant to be. God is in control. Well, if you have ever said this about some evil or some situation in our world upon which you could affect and impact, then you are expressing your own fatalism, not God's omnipotence.

God is in control is a cop-out for you, not a profound statement about God's nature and guidance of history. God is in control betrays a lack of understanding, not only of God's true sovereignty, but also your responsibility in this world. Our leaders teach us poorly on these matters. God is indeed sovereign over every moment of redemptive history. In fact, the emperor Nebuchadnezzar said this after his experience with God.

He said, and I quote from Daniel, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? Unquote. But rather than a fatalistic approach to getting involved, God's true sovereignty, as expressed in the Bible, should impel us to action, knowing that that action will turn out for our good and his glory.

The apostle Paul puts it this way, and I quote him, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. He says this in Philippians chapter 2. So, work for God's good pleasure, dear listener. Get off your bottoms. Stop being apathetic.

Stop being fatalistic. Your action for God's good pleasure will turn out for his glory. We were meant to redeem our world, dear listener, insofar as we are able, and once more, when I speak of our world, let me say, I do not mean the world as the abode of the prince of the power of the air, Satan. I do not mean the world as the place of sin and misery. No, the Bible also uses the word world to describe our immediate life circumstances and surroundings.

For instance, Paul talks about married men and women concerned about worldly things, that is their day-to-day affairs. Paul also says there are many languages in the world, that is the day-to-day affair of speaking, if you will. And Paul says we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity. That is in the world, that is the day, the arena of everyday behavior. So, it is this world that we are capable of redeeming, dear listener, working out our own salvation and working for his good pleasure.

Listener, you can do this. You are obligated to do this. It is not enough to say God is in control and absolve yourself of responsibility to change the world. God is in control is cheap, shallow theology. God is in control is a personal cop-out, not God's all-in.

You may be thinking you are asserting God's all-in, but you are not. God is in control is a personal cop-out, not God's all-in. Well, thirdly, a third kind of Christian fatalism is a misinterpretation of Romans 13. A misinterpretation of Romans 13 can make of us Christian fatalists. Oh, so many pastors and Christians take this text and text like it out of context.

Paul says in Romans 13, verse 1, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God, unquote. Now, it's easy to take this verse in its absolute sense and just say, well, we're expected by God to do whatever we're told by the government. It's sinful to think we can change or criticize it. After all, the government we have is instituted by him. Well, occasionally, you'll have a pastor qualify this maybe by saying, unless that obedience directly contradicts God's expressly stated will.

Sure. Then a few popular examples are trotted out, like a command to have an abortion, or worship an idol, or deny one's faith. And then on we go with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, often cited as biblical examples to follow, as well as Peter before the Sanhedrin, when he said, we must obey God rather than men. Well, otherwise, at least for these teachers, it is useless to protest or to work to change the government or to resist the government in any way. In fact, many of them will say it is disobedient to do so.

Because Paul goes on to say, therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment. Therefore, these teachers go on. We must go with the secret police when they come for us. We must get on the trains when they take us away to the camps.

And we must go into the showers when it's time for us to be gassed. After all, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. Now, I may have dramatized this here a little bit for you, but most American Christians are sublimely comfortable with such an interpretation. It's easy. It's simple and uncomplicated when having to make difficult moral and ethical decisions.

Just let the government do whatever, and I'll do my best to stay out of the way and save souls until the rapture. When Christ sets up the millennium, I hear many say, when Christ sets up the millennium, then there'll be perfect government, but not until then. And I can't do anything about it until then. Oh, this is Christian fatalism. This understanding of Romans 13 is a misunderstanding, and it is nothing less than Christian fatalism.

Because in Romans 13, in its context and in its background, the apostle Paul would insist on this, implicit is the understanding that said government knows, understands, and practices the bad. Paul goes on to say, rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. He is God's servant, Paul says, for your good. Oh, implicit. Government knows, understands, practices the good, knows, understands, and eschews the bad.

Implicit is the understanding that the magistrate will administer true justice, equity, and mercy under the law. Implicit in this text also is that good and bad. Is that defined by God in his word, not just any old thing the government might say. Oh, is child sacrifice, for example, good or bad? If you lived under a Philistine ruler, it would be good, and you would be expected to obey.

And those who espouse the present understanding of Romans 13 would have to agree. Well, Romans 13 also is not the only place where our behavior with respect to government occurs. Paul knows this, and he would expect us to know it too. When a magistrate is unjust, for example, he is by definition an illegitimate authority, and he must be resisted. Proverbs 28.4 says this, those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law resist them.

Those who keep the law resist those who forsake the law. We are responsible for insisting that justice and mercy be administered equally to all by our magistrates. Proverbs 24.11 and 12 says, rescue those being led away to death. Hold back those staggering towards slaughter. If you say, we knew nothing of this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

That is God. Proverbs goes on to say, does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? Oh, dear listener, as a Christian, your voice must be heard. As a Christian, you must work in your world to establish a more perfect union, if you will, and all that that means.

And as a Christian, you must hold the government accountable for the good and the bad by God's standards, that is the Bible, and not just accept it for what it is. Number four, once again, the fourth thing that makes of us Christian fatalists is believing the hypnotic lie of a separation between church and state. Believing the hypnotic lie of a separation between church and state can make of us Christian fatalists. Yes, dear listener, neither scripture nor the constitution teaches the understanding of the separation between church and state hammered incessantly by progressives today.

For them, it means that Christians are to shut up and have no influence, no impact, or voice in government, doesn't it? We know this. No crushes on the law, no 10 commandments in the halls, and no prayers in the schools, right? In fact, if you are a nun in a Catholic hospital serving as a nurse, for example, we have seen this in court decisions here recently, then you must pay for abortions and birth control, whatever your conscience may say to the contrary, as per Obamacare, right?

The progressive attitude towards Christianity, and not any other religion, parenthetically, the progressive attitude towards Christianity, however, has metastasized over the decades from one of benign neglect to open hostility, hasn't it? If you oppose the progressive agenda on biblical principle, well, then you're an enemy of the progressive. You are a right-wing extremist who is inherently evil. The primary culprit, however, the primary culprit in this shifting of attitude and giving of ground is not the progressive, though. What would you expect an implacable foe to do when he sees his enemy giving ground in the war?

Would you expect him to surrender? No. He will press his advantage. This is precisely what the progressives are doing, too, aren't they? What we'd expect them to do, then, as our enemy.

But is this so? The primary culprit in all of this is you, I would say, dear listener, the Christian cowed by a distorted view of the separation of church and state. Oh, the doctrine of the separation of church and state, as it has been inculcated by the progressive, has browbeat you into silence and fatalism. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

Our constitution says so, doesn't it? But is this so? Two points I want to make with you about this doctrine of the separation of church and state. Number one, the first amendment was to keep the federal government out of the religious affairs of the states. Yes, and the language is quite explicit.

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Specifically, it meant there would be no national denomination as there was in the country of origin, that is, England. This is the background of the first amendment. And then the federal government could, therefore, not force church tithes, as in England, church bishops, as in England, or could not force forms of worship on the states or the people and their churches. So that was the purpose of the first amendment.

The government was always expected to be profoundly influenced by the Christian religion. Daniel Webster says as much in that he asserts that the Bible had a profound effect upon the laws and the constitution of the United States. Secondly, we must also note that Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists also meant to protect Christians from state influence, not the state from Christian influence. Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, in which this phrase, the separation of church and state was coined.

It's nowhere found in the constitution, but in his now famous letter to the Danbury Baptists who were concerned about the federal government tyrannizing them the way the British government had back in England. And thus they composed a letter to the new president, Thomas Jefferson, and expressed these things. Well, Jefferson wrote back to them that he too felt that, as he says, religion is a matter which lies solely between a man and his God. Jefferson felt, and he goes on to say that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

And I contemplate with sovereign reverence, Jefferson says, that act of the whole American people, which declared that their legislature would, and he then cites the first amendment, make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Jefferson goes on to say, thus building a wall of separation between church and state, unquote. This was his phrase, not the constitution's phrase. Dear listener, let me underline that with you again. Nowhere found in the constitution, the idea of a separation of church and state.

And in its context, when we understand it in the context of the letter, it reassures them that it is the Danbury Baptist of government's restraint towards the Christian religion, not the Christian religion's lack of influence on government. In fact, the founders expected that the Christian faith would have a salutary influence on government. Yes, John Adams said that our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is unfit for any other. So, dear listener, come out of your Christian fatalism, if any of these tendencies are doors.

In fact, you were wired for action. You were built for action as a Christian. Christ expects you. He sends you out to baptize and disciple the nations. And that includes our nation, the United States of America.

And our founding fathers would have expected you, them, to baptize and disciple this nation too. And do so boldly, do so freely, and do so in the confidence that God will honor his promises. This has been Pastor David Bass exhorting you to indeed come out of your Christian fatalism and begin to act and redeem this nation. We meet for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

And we encourage you to come out of the shadows, come and visit us not only at our worship service on Sunday at 10 a.m., 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard, but I also invite you to our spaghetti dinner, spaghetti fellowship dinner, on the last Wednesday of this month, the month of February, at 5 p.m. in our fellowship hall. I'll be there slinging spaghetti along with a few of our other members, and we encourage you to join us. And you can call us for more information and for feedback at 523-0196. That's 523-0196.